In the past several days, we’ve learned about how you too can gain a degree of public sympathy if you plan to embark on a killing spree and then go into hiding as you bide your time waiting to kill again: Write a “manifesto” dominated by anti-police rants, a “progressive” outlook towards Second Amendment freedoms and support for leftist politicians.

That’s what former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner, who is accused of killing Monica Quan, Keith Lawrence, and an as yet unnamed LAPD officer while wounding two others, has done. His sympathy-by-manifesto strategy has been alarmingly successful.

Dorner’s 11,000-word tome, addressed to “America,” was reportedly delivered to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on February 1. Much of its second half directs praise and scorn at a variety of politicians, celebrities and athletes while also, of all things, politicking for gun control and praising two of its proponents (spelling and grammar errors were not fixed in this and the following manifesto excerpt):

The time is now to reinstitute a ban (on assault weapons) that will save lives. Why does any sportsman need a 30 round magazine for hunting? Why does anyone need a suppressor? Why does anyone need a AR15 rifle?

… Mia Farrow said it best. “Gun control is no longer debatable, it’s not a conversation, its a moral mandate.”

Sen. Feinstein, you are doing the right thing in leading the re-institution of a national AWB.

Dorner also effusively praises President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, while showing contempt and disdain for “America,” the screed’s addressee, for not wholeheartedly supporting Dear Leader (paragraph breaks added by me):

You disrespect the office of the POTUS/Presidency and Commander in Chief. You call him Kenyan, mongroid, halfrican, muslim, and FBHO when in essence you are to address him as simply, President. The same as you did to President George W. Bush and all those in the highest ranking position of our land before him. Just as I always have.

You question his birth certificate, his educational and professional accomplishments, and his judeo-christian beliefs. You make disparaging remarks about his dead parents.

… You call his wife a Wookie. Off the record, I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama. A woman whose professional and educational accomplishments are second to none when compared to recent First wives.

You call his supporters, whether black, brown, yellow, or white, leeches, FSA, welfare recipients, and ni$&er lovers. You say this openly without any discretion. Before you start with your argument that you believe I would vote for Obama because he has the same skin color as me, (expletive) you.

… Mr. President, I haven’t agreed with all of your decisions but of course I haven’t agreed with all of your predecessors decisions. I think you’ve done a hell of a job with what you have been dealt and how you have managed it. I shed a tear the night you were initially elected President in 2008.

While Dorner’s alleged acts and plans have properly appalled the vast majority of America, a distressingly large contingent of our fellow citizens considers him a hero.

As of 10 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, I located two newly-minted Dorner-friendly Facebook pages: “I Support Christopher Jordan Dorner” (over 7,700 “likes”), and “LAPD Cop Killer Christopher Dorner is A HERO” (over 300 “likes”). On Saturday, Breitbart.com’s Ben Shapiro identified several others. This is clear evidence that there is a dangerous strand of thought on the left which is perfectly fine with the commission of violent, murderous acts — as long as their perpetrators hold anti-establishment, anti-authority views.

By contrast, the pro-life community always roundly denounces the very few acts of violence visited upon abortion clinics and abortion doctors — of course other than those which clinic employees themselves commit by killing pre-born babies. Criminals who have bombed clinics and harmed or murdered their employees have never garnered any meaningful level of sympathy beyond a truly tiny and obviously unrepresentative fringe.

Public figures who should know better have either gone into a sympathy routine or chosen a strange form of neutrality towards Dorner. Jesse Jackson tweeted: “I understand your feelings of hurt and pain.” Noticeably absent was any recognition of the “hurt and pain” Dorner has inflicted on the families of Quan, Lawrence, and the unnamed slain police officer’s families. Bitter Bill Maher attempted to draw an equivalence between cold-blooded killing and a “headline” at FoxNews.com, which, from what I can tell, was really either never there or was planted by a commenter at a blog post. The aforementioned Ms. Farrow tweeted about “a murderer cop,” but “somehow” didn’t mention that Dorner views her favorably.

Print and web reports from the nation’s establishment press are following Farrow’s example. From reading their output, you wouldn’t even know that Dorner even mentioned President Obama, Mrs. Obama, or Vice President Joe Biden, let alone spent hundreds of words praising them. An unbylined Friday report at the Associated Press containing “some samples” from the manifesto which one would have hoped would be representative managed to suppress everything relating to our sitting president, his wife, and vice president, but managed to quote relatively brief mentions of George H.W. Bush, Chris Christie, Hillary Clinton, and Colin Powell, while also ignoring Dorner’s anti-gun stance. There isn’t a chance in Hades that the self-described “essential global news network” would have been so kind to a sitting Republican or conservative president, first lady, or veep.

Also recall that ABC’s Brian Ross initially attempted to pin the blame for the Aurora, Colorado theater murders on a Tea Party activist based only on his name, while his network and other have reported nothing about Dorner’s sympathy for Obama.

Just to be clear, no one Dorner named shares any blame for his actions. He bears that responsibility alone.

That’s not what the left or their media sympathizers would be saying if Dorner had invoked the views of conservative talk radio hosts, pundits, or politicians in a vain attempt to justify themselves.